Real estate

The Rancho Murieta Association board honored the homes with the best holiday decorations at Tuesday night’s meeting. Sean and Kristin Donnalley and kids of Murieta South Parkway were among those honored. See photos of the winners here.

The Camino Del Sol home, left, and the Lago Drive townhouse are owned, at least for now, by the Rancho Murieta Association.

Two foreclosed homes in Murieta North -- a townhouse on Lago Drive with a view of Laguna Joaquin and a two-story single-family home on Camino Del Sol -- have something else in common. Both are owned by the Rancho Murieta Association and they're being rented to recoup unpaid homeowners association fees.

The Sacramento Business Journal reported Tuesday that Murieta Plaza, Rancho Murieta's only retail center, sold for $6.42 million after an eight-month escrow that was complicated by the lack of recorded easements on the private roads that access the center -- Murieta Drive and Lone Pine Drive. Staff writer Kelly Johnson's blog says the 66,000-square-foot center last sold in 2003 for $7.78 million. The seller is identified as "a Southern California man" and the buyer is a Bay Area family investment group, according to Johnson's blog. Read more » about Murieta Plaza sells for $6.42 million

If you live on a circle, townhouse, cottage or McKim lot and you want a fenced yard, pool or other backyard amenity that won’t fit entirely within the property line, you could be out of luck after Tuesday. That’s when the Rancho Murieta Association board of directors will act on rules that require the approval of 67 percent of the membership for new exclusive use leases. Read more » about RMA board faces decision on allowing leases of common area

The Rancho Murieta Association board voted Tuesday night to go into budgeting for 2010 with an alternative budget for cable -- one that moves cable maintenance and operations funding into a separate document. The board also addressed the idea of holding real estate open houses on Saturdays and the question of Security's powers and a Security memo from earlier in the year that apparently orders the department's officers to not respond to requests from the sheriff's department. Read more » about RMA discusses cable budget, Security, Saturday open houses and more